The Assassin: Keeley Hawes drama is a milestone for menopause on screen

By Beth Johnson, Professor of Television & Media Studies, University of Leeds

Keeley Hawes’s new Channel 4 and Prime Video drama, The Assassin, introduces a premise that feels both bold and overdue. It follows Julie (Hawes), a menopausal woman, overlooked and emotionally stalled, who worked as a hitwoman in her youth and unexpectedly comes out of retirement to return to the profession.

It’s pulpy, stylised and laced with dark humour. But beneath the genre trappings lies something more striking – a cultural pivot in how menopause and midlife womanhood is being written and visualised on British television.

Historically, menopause has been television’s…

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